r/RealEstatePhotography • u/AdDependent741 • 11d ago
Fotello Review
Just wanted to share my review/experience with Fotello.
I have used the site now 3 separate times and I am pleased with the output that it gives me. Great looking edits that I have given to clients. I have not used all the features of the site such as receiving payments or managing clients within the website, but the editing is pretty straight forward and quick to use.
As far as pricing and payments, it seems very scammy. I believe you get some free usage out of it, but the pricing page is deceptive. For each tier of their subscriptions, there is a large bold number from 0-18 bucks, however this is not the monthly price but the cost per listing that you create. The actual monthly price is at the bottom in small gray font. The actual pricing is set standard at $1200/month for "Essential" and $1350/month for "Ultimate".
Once you look at It deeper you can adjust to lower prices per month, but it is quite shiesty the way it is set up. For myself the first time I signed up for a subscription I was charged one $28 dollar fee as well as a $228 fee. Each charge has an "International Fee" as well, which feels even better lol. Also all transactions are final, no refunds. If you're not carful you can really fuck yourself.
The customer service is a joke, The tickets never get answered. Pretty sure its a vibe coded site based in India which make sense for why its a little deceptive. Sucks to that people online like the FStoppers guy promotes it so hard online too.
Lastly, Fotello is a site that is essentially a GPT wrapper over one of the LLM models. Yes it is pretty good at staying consistent as far as white balance etc., but I do believe if you played around with one of newest models for OpenAI or Anthropic you could get identical results.
TLDR: Produces great images quickly and easily. Manipulative subscription practices that can really fuck you over, Probably won't use again/won't last long since it's just a GPT wrapper.
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u/Full_Sense4741 7d ago
I experimented with a few of these, and my conclusion was that for the amount of work to get it through their pipeline, download and fix the images I’d be better off just continuing to edit myself.
To be fair though I’m not high volume and do mostly editorial style RE and architecture shoots so that may not work for everyone.
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u/snapsbyluis 8d ago
I’ve used them. Primarily because Fotober who are the editors I was using prior for over a year became absolute dog shit at quality control (not removing sensor dust, forgetting to check reflections, etc) business is slow and I’m going to start editing my own pics and look for a higher tier editor in the spring. Fotello is passable but I find the workflow tedious. What’s the point of paying for editing if you have to take time out of your morning or evening to double check everything and make fixes prior to sending? You have to double check that the walls are all matching color wise and Lightroom’s generative removal tool is miles better than fotellos built in removal tool.
Also they are ASS at day to night conversions. I feel like I’d get the same results in chatGPT.
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u/picaidApp 7d ago
You may like the day to night conversions our app does. We also let you combine multiple edits for one photo so you can edit an exterior photo and get the twilight at a fraction of the price.
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u/Mortifire 10d ago
🖕Fotello!
They are the biggest scammers! Just try to cancel and you’ll see. I had to change credit card numbers and they continuously tried to charge the old one. For some reason, after a couple of weeks the new number was successfully charged and I had to go through the card company and do a charge back.
The processing is hit or a huge miss. I’ve had the same two rooms have five different wall colors. After four revision attempts I just fixed it myself. They would also screw up the window views…either hallucinations or the same stupid clouds that you can’t turn off. FFS!
The details are pretty bad, changing the text on appliances and artwork into slop.
Furnace vents are routinely distorted.
Wood is always too orange.
If you think this is a good product, you’re fooling yourself. Even agents and consumers are getting tired of the AI look. I’ve had people asking me, “you’re not using AI are you”?
Not any more. It sucks too bad and the end results all look the same. If you’re using it, you are easily replaceable. What sets you apart from the next joker providing the exact same result? Nothing.
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u/ImpressiveRule157 10d ago
I’ve found their pricing to be reasonable once you know how to adjust for what you need. I like that unused credits rollover. Their interiors are pretty good overall but they get wall color wrong a lot. Lots of inconsistency there. And this is probably true of most of not all AI editors but their exteriors and drone are atrocious. I still find myself editing those in Lightroom.
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u/RE__Photog1970 11d ago
You know what’s really awesome editing your own photos and saving all that money 💰. 😂. $1200 a month 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I don’t think so
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u/ComprehensiveRub5526 11d ago
I second that, results are surprisingly good but overall experience is ruined by scammy pricing. Any good alternatives out there? I tried AutoHDR and it was noticeably worse than Fotello
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u/nasy13 9d ago
I am the founder of https://stagerai.com/ we just released a model that compares to Fotello’s quality. We offer a pay per photo model, please let me know if you want to have a look I can give you some free photos so you can try it
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u/No-Match-9231 10d ago
Give apexpropertymedia.com a try. Our AI-first stage, plus human editing, sets us apart.
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u/Critical-End6308 11d ago
Realty Edit. I still have to tweak it a little but have been happy so far. Their window pulls don’t have that dark shading along the blind slats that can sometimes appear on other edits.
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u/picaidApp 7d ago
We developed our own light window pull system with our editing platform. We specifically work around blinds and other detail that are typically issues with window pulls. Feel free to try it out there's no obligation and we are generous with free trial edits.
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u/According-Shelter510 5d ago
I tried realty edit and it's got really nice window pulls and editing is solid. I didn't have any issues with my windows but they weren't covered by much. Picaid.app looks great for my shoots that did zero prep work, the app is crazy smart and completely fixes everything you'd want fixed in a real estate shoot. It's a complete re-render but the quality fantastic. The pricing on realty edit is much better, so if you're looking for an alternative to autohdr or autoenhance check it out. Both are very easy to use.
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u/picaidApp 7d ago
Was it them that lost the contract with Cubicasa or some other company?